Our current understanding of consciousness?

A fellow Arsian suggested I post here asking whether you could enlighten me a little on our current understanding of consciousness. From what I understand it is an unsolved mystery but we may be getting close to a proven theory.

It feels to me that there are two ends to the scale of thought on this: classical neuroscience approach with consciousness emerging from a sufficiently complex system such as the brain and which is purely dependent on that physical structure. Or something along the lines of what is mentioned here (http://www.quantum-mind.co.uk) investigating the possibility of quantum consciousness.

The answer is -- nobody knows, at least with measurable tests, how consciousness "works".

Reading laymans literature, concentrating on Artificial Intelligence, there doesn't seem to be any 'easy' answer. AI researchers agree that they aren't any closer to solving the problem of emulating consciousness, even after decades of attempting to 'nail down' the problem. (A school-friend is an AI researcher)

Some successes with neural networks, but nothing that describes the mechanics of "I think, therefore I am".

Quantum consciousness was a popular theory back in the day based on the principles: 1) We don't really understand consciousness, and 2) we don't really understand quantum mechanics. Equating two things we don't understand is a logical fallacy, but it is somewhat understandable. These days we understand quantum mechanics pretty well but still don't understand consciousness -- and trying to draw connections between them without evidence is inexcusable in this age. While quantum mechanics certainly underlies biochemistry and therefore the operation of the brain on a sub-microscopic level, there is no evidence to support the idea that some special property of quantum physics is necessary or important for the phenomenon we understand as consciousness.

From a fundamental point of view, quantum mechanics does not help at all to explain the apparent non-determinism of consciousness. While quantum mechanics is debatably non-deterministic, it is by all evidence completely mechanistic and is no help whatsoever in explaining intuition.

From a theoretical computer science perspective, quantum machines are capable of solving the exact same set of problems as classical turing machines. The problems that quantum computers are apparently able to solve much more efficiently than turing machines do not seem to have any relevance for consciousness.

At a practical level, it appears to be extremely difficult to preserve any quantum coherence at macroscopic scales. Even most biological macromolecules seem to be completely describable in terms of classical physics as long as you take the inter-atomic forces due to quantum mechanics as fundamental principles. The exceptions, such as the recent work on chlorophyll are rare and specialized functions, and still operate on very small scales. There is no reason to think that any uniquely quantum behavior would manifest at the scale of an entire cell much less a brain.

A ++ to everything norton_I said, except we should keep an open mind with regard to

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There is no reason to think that any uniquely quantum behavior would manifest at the scale of an entire cell much less a brain.

The converse of the above is, given how nature is quantum-mechanical at the bottom we have no good reason to suppose that evolution is somehow barred from QM effects and forced to only work in the realm of classical physics.

I took a gander at the site Oelph linked to in the OP and was disappointed to find it was not some quack site full of mysticism but seemingly an honest attempt to investigate the influence of QM on the brain. How am I supposed to get worked-up with indignation over that?

norton_I wrote:

While quantum mechanics is debatably non-deterministic, it is by all evidence completely mechanistic and is no help whatsoever in explaining intuition.

we have no good reason to suppose that evolution is somehow barred from QM effects

Decoherence isn't a good reason? The fact we're not aware of any biological processes that resolve over quantum time-frames?

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How am I supposed to get worked-up with indignation over that?

Because of the way it's written - the author's style is straight out of the Conspiracy Theorist's style guidelines.

On the issue of determinism, why do we assume that the mind is non-deterministic? The *conscious* part of the mind may well not know the underlying ("sub-conscious") reasons underpinning the choices made - in that sense, choice or free will would be illusions, would they not? Indeed I would conjecture that this illusion of free will is central to the experience of 'concsiousness'.

Thanks for that, bluloo. That looks like good stuff. His book is on my reading list, my only problem is does it come before or after The User Illusion.

I honestly believe that when mankind finally understands the mechanisms of consciousness - and we will one day, I feel sure - then an awful lot of (current?) philosophical questions are going to be answered/made redundant. Why would we need any kind of 'Brain In Vat' argument then?

Before reading, I will once again throw caution to the wind and wildly nail my colours to a mast - conscious thought and information as it is processed in the brain is achieved at a symbolic level (hope that isn't obvious, it's just how far I've got myself on trying to understand it without reading anything specific to the topic).

It's interesting to me that consciousness alludes us more than other aspects of science. I would agree that when we find answers it could well render a lot of philosophical questions redundant.

I'm in the middle of The Elegant Universe right now so The User Illusion will have to wait. Others may be interested in this more mainstream site (http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk) which I became aware of recently. She takes the stance that there is no free will, only an illusion. Given all the background information processing and analysis the sub-conscious appears to do I could well believe this. Isn't hypnosis a form of tampering with the process of 'free will'?

I didn't realise that some of the theories mentioned on the quantum mind site have since been disproved.

That's rather reductionist; why not take it down to quantum mechanics (again) then? I think it might be fairer to say that the biochemical mechanisms of the brain are affected by chemicals, thus the functionality of the brain is dependent on them. However conciousness is, I contend, a function of how the brain is wired as much as if not (much) more than how it's supplied with or uses chemicals. And more importantly, it's the higher-level 'logic/encoding' that gives us the material our knowledge, experiences, memory and even conscious awareness is made from. Kind of like how electromagnetic theory and semiconductor physics tell us nothing about software design, or even microelectronic circuit design... And this is why I think that the study of consciousness has been so hard because we have (I believe) only limited knowledge of the wiring and much less knowledge of how it operates 'live' - we are in many ways limited to external observation. OTOH, neural science has pulled off some neat feats - like recoving the data of what a cat sees through its eyes or IBM's simulation of a cortical column in the human brain (some 10,000 neurons, all simulated ab initiae at the physical level).

You need a theory of illusion before saying things like that, and once you have such a useful theory, you won't say things like that. The logic of the concept of illusion involves the concept of a mistake, or misinterpretation. The experience of free will, like the experience of the color purple, is not illusory because there is no mistake or misinterpretation involved. The experience can't really be otherwise. We have such experiences because of how we are wired, and possibly in part, in the case of free will, because of extensive cultural reinforcement.

That's rather reductionist; why not take it down to quantum mechanics (again) then?

Because there is no evidential basis for doing so and acres of it within medicine for the basis being chemistry.

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However conciousness is, I contend, a function of how the brain is wired as much as if not (much) more than how it's supplied with or uses chemicals.

And how is it "wired" and how does it "wire" itself? Chemistry and electrochemistry. I don't think you'd find many people willing to debate the non-existence of ion channels.

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And more importantly, it's the higher-level 'logic/encoding' that gives us the material our knowledge, experiences, memory and even conscious awareness is made from. Kind of like how electromagnetic theory and semiconductor physics tell us nothing about software design, or even microelectronic circuit design...

Given the microelectronic circuit design, a competent programmer will be able to code for it. It's certainly very complex, but not an impossibility or any great break in flow.

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And this is why I think that the study of consciousness has been so hard because we have (I believe) only limited knowledge of the wiring and much less knowledge of how it operates 'live' - we are in many ways limited to external observation.

Your choices are chemistry or magic. There are no known quantum mechanical effects at work and we'd surely have noticed them by now if neurons were designed in that way.

We know how neurons work. They do so using electrochemistry and bog standard chemistry. While there are emergent properties, there is no magic.

The logic of the concept of illusion involves the concept of a mistake, or misinterpretation. The experience of free will, like the experience of the color purple, is not illusory because there is no mistake or misinterpretation involved.

I agree with the first sentence, but I fail to see how you justify the second one. You seem to imply we have free will because we experience it. Yet we experience many illusions - which we plainly know to be illusions. Why can't the experience of free will be illusory? Given just how much mental processing is hidden from our self-awareness how can we really make ANY claim to free will? Do you *really* know why you chose one beer rather than another at the bar? Have you ever seen someone like Derren Brown totally fuck with people's *apparent* free will, demonstating they in fact have nothing of the sort?

I first began to question the notion of free will because it was used to prop up superstition in soap box threads but it follows too as a question in metaphysics, something I have spent plenty of time thinking about. In the end, I can't see any evidence to support the existance of free will, at least in any literal (non-deterministic) sense. We believe it because ...we always have. Kind of like other ancient explanatory ideas, like the mythical 'soul' for instance, that have lived on through cultural inertia past the point of usefulness... But when you question it, what do you find exactly? I can't find anything! That said, I'm willing to suppose that the illusion of free will may well serve a useful purpose, so that in fact it is an evolved ability that served a useful and even powerful biological purpose. Kind of like how being able to see 'agency' in other things serves a valuable survival purpose (ie 'that's a tiger, it wants to eat me' vs 'that's an interesting shape, oh that's nice, it has orange and bla... *roar* *pounce* *crunch crunch crucnh*). So, if we re-phrase 'free will' as 'personal agency' and therefore responsibility in a chain of 'cause and effect' we can see a conceptual-level mechanism for effecting change. It needn't (couldn't?) be true at a conscious level that we made something happen, but if we none-the-less had the illusion of that, it can feed back into our subconscious as a learned experience/memory that better prepares us for the next time. Thus the illusion of free will helps us to act. Anyway, as fun as this is to think about, I have to read Koch's book because I feel sure a lot of these matters have long been addressed.

Hat, I'm not saying chemistry doesn't explain how neurons work, but the net effect of what neurons do needn't be (and most likely isn't, in large part) due to chemistry. Let me put it this way - maths doesn't follow from chemistry, does it? Yet our brains do maths. It's the question of how brains do maths - or anything else - that is the question. That chemistry underpins the functioning of the brain is not in question, but neither is it going to give us answers to the questions we are interested in. Kinda like how knowing semiconductor physics doesn't help you write software.

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And how is it "wired" and how does it "wire" itself?

Genetics and embryology in the first instance, at least. After that, in broad terms, you have an adaptive system. How it adapts is chemistry, why it adapts the way it does is not.

The logic of the concept of illusion involves the concept of a mistake, or misinterpretation. The experience of free will, like the experience of the color purple, is not illusory because there is no mistake or misinterpretation involved.

I agree with the first sentence, but I fail to see how you justify the second one. You seem to imply we have free will because we experience it. Yet we experience many illusions - which we plainly know to be illusions. Why can't the experience of free will be illusory? Given just how much mental processing is hidden from our self-awareness how can we really make ANY claim to free will? Do you *really* know why you chose one beer rather than another at the bar? Have you ever seen someone like Derren Brown totally fuck with people's *apparent* free will, demonstating they in fact have nothing of the sort?

I first began to question the notion of free will because it was used to prop up superstition in soap box threads but it follows too as a question in metaphysics, something I have spent plenty of time thinking about. In the end, I can't see any evidence to support the existance of free will, at least in any literal (non-deterministic) sense. We believe it because ...we always have. Kind of like other ancient explanatory ideas, like the mythical 'soul' for instance, that have lived on through cultural inertia past the point of usefulness... But when you question it, what do you find exactly? I can't find anything! That said, I'm willing to suppose that the illusion of free will may well serve a useful purpose, so that in fact it is an evolved ability that served a useful and even powerful biological purpose. Kind of like how being able to see 'agency' in other things serves a valuable survival purpose (ie 'that's a tiger, it wants to eat me' vs 'that's an interesting shape, oh that's nice, it has orange and bla... *roar* *pounce* *crunch crunch crucnh*). So, if we re-phrase 'free will' as 'personal agency' and therefore responsibility in a chain of 'cause and effect' we can see a conceptual-level mechanism for effecting change. It needn't (couldn't?) be true at a conscious level that we made something happen, but if we none-the-less had the illusion of that, it can feed back into our subconscious as a learned experience/memory that better prepares us for the next time. Thus the illusion of free will helps us to act. Anyway, as fun as this is to think about, I have to read Koch's book because I feel sure a lot of these matters have long been addressed.

I can keep this short which is good because we don't need to have a free will thread.

You don't agree with the second sentence because you are assuming I mean metaphysical free will when all I was talking about was the "experience of free will". I don't believe in metaphysical free will and I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about that measure of "free will" sufficient to explain things like planning and experienced volitional action. You subsequently spoke of such things as well so we're close to the same page. I have no interest in the concept of metaphysical free will -- that's some philosopher's stone.

My basic message to you is that you (and those people you quoted/cited) need to open the logical space within which you contemplate this matter. There is more than either "metaphysical free will" or "illusion". Specifically, there is the fact that we experience a successful capacity for planning and at least occasional volitional action, and the further fact that we all do so, and do so standardly. It is not as though we go through our entire lives just watching what happens to us. (Not normally.) The fact that the experiences of voluntary action, agency, planning are normal and natural makes them logically non-illusory -- on the understanding that illusion logically involves some sort of mistake/failure/misinterpretation. We all had experiences of voluntary action, agency, and planning long before some philosophers invented the notion of metaphysical free will so I'm not chary of talking about free will qua experience and no one else should be either.

As for "couldn't be true at a conscious level that we made something happen": Huh? Why not? You seem to have drifted into a "ghost in the machine" view of consciousness. That's crazy talk.

Conscious states, processes, and events, are physical states/processes/events. As such they have as much determinism as any other physical state, process, or event.

Simple chemicals can alter the state, being or even presence of consciousness.

Ergo consciousness is based on chemistry.

That's a bit simplistic. It means that in order for something to be conscious as far as we know) there needs to be some kind of chemical interactions. But if you got all the chemical components of a human being and dumped them on the ground in a pile, it would not be conscious.

To the OP, we don't know.

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Your choices are chemistry or magic

Really? You honestly believe that the human race has masted all knowledge of every interaction in the universe and anything that falls outside out current understanding is "magic"?

Our choices are "chemistry, magic, or something else we don't know about yet". I put my money on the third.

Hat, I'm not saying chemistry doesn't explain how neurons work, but the net effect of what neurons do needn't be (and most likely isn't, in large part) due to chemistry. Let me put it this way - maths doesn't follow from chemistry, does it? Yet our brains do maths. It's the question of how brains do maths - or anything else - that is the question. That chemistry underpins the functioning of the brain is not in question, but neither is it going to give us answers to the questions we are interested in. Kinda like how knowing semiconductor physics doesn't help you write software.

I think you could more succinctly say this as “chemistry is not the most useful level for understanding consciousness”. Assuming QM is sufficiently correct, everything in biology can (in theory) be understood as a consequence of quantum mechanics, it's just not really useful to consider everything in terms of QM because much of the detail turns out to be irrelevant.

As far as I'm aware we don't have a good theory of consciousness, so it could turn out that you need to be at the level of chemistry to have one. I doubt it, though; neurons and their signalling seem sufficiently isolated from the specific details of their chemical makeup.

Simple chemicals can alter the state, being or even presence of consciousness.

Ergo consciousness is based on chemistry.

That's a bit simplistic. It means that in order for something to be conscious as far as we know) there needs to be some kind of chemical interactions. But if you got all the chemical components of a human being and dumped them on the ground in a pile, it would not be conscious.

o_0

HM is suggesting that, based on the current neuroscience, brain chemistry is a necessary correlate of what we term "consciousness". A functioning (human) brain is implied. The functioning biological support system (we might call this system 'a human') is further implied.

All too often, especially when attempting to understand (meta)cognitive processes, we run afoul of reification and all it brings. IME, it's an incredible barrier to understanding a variety of facets of human behavior.

As far as science is concerned, "consciousness", like "free will", is a label we attach to a construct. They 'exist' (or don't) much as "love" or "happy" exits.

We need relatively stringent parameters (but not necessarily inflexible definitions) for such concepts, in order to assess the underlying processes, as well as assigning/defining both proximate and ultimate causes (and, possibly, their relevant interactions).

Further, we need to separate the philosophy from the science, at least temporarily, for the sake of a rigorous examination of the underlying processes that (may) give rise to "consciousness".

While I'm not certain, I don't think QM holds the key to understanding consciousness, or any other cognitive process. It may be at the root, and therefore an ultimate cause, or it may interact with mechanistic processes at various levels, but I tend to doubt that it's primary and proximate.

We know how neurons work. They do so using electrochemistry and bog standard chemistry. While there are emergent properties, there is no magic.

This.

We do not understand the whole "ghost in the machine" part.

But, we understand damn near everything else.

The fact is, we can explain things like memory, most of sight, and a whole lot else. We stimulate the brain in just the right way, we see the pieces work.

We even have a decent idea why doing math is hard and recognizing faces is far easier.

We also understand some basic and important things that show who is in charge of whom.

If I give you a strong enough dose of any number of chemicals, the result is predictable -- you lose consciousness. You can't fight it off. And, unless you believe in some unfalsifiable position, the common phrase "lose consciousness" is exactly what happens.

Anesthesiologists (except when they screw up) make their living from this evident physical fact.

But, you can reproduce it with excessive alcohol or a mere concussion (if it is a bad enough one).

Or, you can simply go to sleep.

Simply put, the consciousness, whatever it turns out to be, is a servant and an effect of biochemistry, period. It can and is shut on and off like a light switch. It is important to us and has trivially obvious survival value, but if we view it a little more dispassionately, it is easy to see that even our brain does not value consciousness at all times and places. It actually seems to require that it is shut down for eight hours (plus or minus individual variance) per day.

It's not really "reductionist" to say that (or, said another way, "reductionist" is the right label overall).

I once had an internet argument with a dualist about this. Basically, the way it worked out was that everything except the actual "aha" part was explainable already. The "aha" may defy explanation, but if we know the rest, we have some reason to suspect that someday, somehow, this holdout will be put to rest, too.

I certainly see nothing (e.g. like a Halting Theorum) that makes it impossible. It's a truly open question, albeit a hard one.

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I don't think QM holds the key to understanding consciousness, or any other cognitive process.

Agreed. QM has the role in this that electricity had in the age that produced the Frankenstein story IMO.

Who knows, but I suspect that mere imperfect information and imperfect biophysical processes (our memories are not ROM) are sufficient to explain things like "free will". That, and the fact that no two people, even identical twins, have identical information states.

Give someone a complex enough state (we all clearly have it) and a system that relies on voting and biochemistry and you don't need QM to suggest that our brains cannot "rerun a program" with the kind of reproducibility than a computer program does.

The 'free will' as observed is adequately explained with somewhat rational decision making (along with making errors and childhood conditioning) and some thermal noise. The 'conscience' as observed is adequately explained as seeing some tiny bit of own's thought process.

The 'free will' as needlessly postulated by philosophers apriori unwilling to believe in any mechanistic explanation of 'free will', well, it's not something that has been observed but something that has been made up (and not even well defined). They hang onto quantum mechanics because quantum mechanics is complicated, they don't understand QM, and this way they can resist mechanistic explanation by referencing QM.The free will has two dangling words: "free" - free from what? That's not specified. Will - will of who? Not specified either. Typical philosophical argument against free will in deterministic universe goes to show that will is not free from whoever has this will (a deterministic being, that's who).

There's also a philosophical hang-up on the 'predetermination' (which is also two dangling words - pre, prior to what? and determined - determined by who/what?). For many deterministic processes (and certainly all the complicated ones), the end result, even though abstractly determined by initial conditions and process itself, cannot be arrived at without running that deterministic process*, and is thus not determined by anyone or anything other than running the process. The philosopher takes "outcome is determined by initial conditions", substitutes the word "predetermined" for "determined", and suddenly its as if outcome was determined by someone prior to running that process, which could well be impossible for conscious process, and would contradict free will. The verbal reasoning diverges from making sense in an arbitrary direction with each step, and much of philosophy consists of making it diverge in what ever direction you like.

* or at least the philosopher has never shown that it can, but assumed that this is possible for any process.

The free will has two dangling words: "free" - free from what? That's not specified. Will - will of who? Not specified either. Typical philosophical argument against free will in deterministic universe goes to show that will is not free from whoever has this will (a deterministic being, that's who).

Relativity is deterministic. Quantum Mechanics is not. They both exist and work within the same universe. Reconciling is left as an exercise for the Nobel Prize winner.

The free will has two dangling words: "free" - free from what? That's not specified. Will - will of who? Not specified either. Typical philosophical argument against free will in deterministic universe goes to show that will is not free from whoever has this will (a deterministic being, that's who).

Relativity is deterministic. Quantum Mechanics is not. They both exist and work within the same universe. Reconciling is left as an exercise for the Nobel Prize winner.

Well, if you take out the wavefunction collapse from QM, then the theory is deterministic, and you still get same results (with apparent randomness that comes from thermal noise in 'observer'). The difficulty of reconciling has nothing to do with non-determinism vs determinism but is rather a lot more technical issue with quantizing the spacetime of general relativity.

In any case true randomness adds nothing to 'free' the will but instead makes the resulting will random unless the brain is perfect at eliminating the noise in the circuits. Even though thermal noise can, with ultra low probability, lead to activation of some brain circuit that will make you jump off the bridge, this action is not considered to be an example of your own will but just of enormously bad luck. If a decision is made by your brain, in such a way depending on the true random source, that the decision is random 50/50 either way, that is not usually taken to be an example of free will choice either. Regardless of whenever you flipped the coin, or your neurons amplified some quantum tunnelling or thermal noise in the head. The non-determinism does not help explain observation and self-observation of 'free will' and consciousness, as a good pseudo-random source (such as thermal noise in classical physics) would not have been distinguished from a truly random one.

Which is kind of like saying "We understand everthing about a light bulb except why it lights up" at which point one would question if you really understood anything about a light bulb at all.

No. It's nothing at all like that. We "know" that, in order to yield consciousness , we need a (certain type of) functioning neurosystem, or brain*. We also know that brain functions are the result of a variety of interactive, electro-chemical processes. They're observable, measurable and testable. We know this because neuroscience has observed, measured, and tested a variety of cognitive and emotional processes, using modern imaging and recording technologies.

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And I'm not sure where magic comes into this. Hat said consciousness was simply a matter of chemistry. Which is a pretty stupid thing to say. We don't know where consciousness comes from.

He didn't suggest it's simply a matter of chemistry. He said it results from brain chemistry. The key concept is brain, and all it's related science.

It's not stupid. It's what the current science tells us.Because we already have a viable explanation for the necessary correlates of consciousness, your statement, which is both inaccurate and in direct conflict with the science, isn't significantly different from suggesting that consciousness "comes from" magic.

Unless it's a semantic problem, you seem to be rejecting the foundational neuroscience, and suggesting that there's "something else out there" that we haven't yet discovered. Substituting a black box for what is already a demonstrable, scientific construct, is a poor foundation for any scientific inquiry.

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the source of consciousness is unknown. It's something we haven't discovered yet. Maybe that something is a chemical interaction, who knows. It's not magic, it's just unknown.

The "source" of consciousness is, as far as our current understanding can reasonably investigate, is known. But "source", in this case, can be a problematic term and is limited to what we already know. When discussing the "source" of consciousness, science can invistigate the proximate source - the necessary correlates or biological elements required to produce consciousness.It's the brain. It isn't some mysterious force residing in the aethers.

If you want to argue about the ultimate source of consciousness - something like "the universe gives rise to consciousness" (e.g. we don't need the electrochemical processes of the brain), it will be an extremely difficult uphill battle, especially if you want to argue from a testable, scientific construct.

Also, it's important to differentiate between concepts such as investigating "the (ultimate) source of" and "necessary correlates/necessary elements for" consciousness. At this time modern, scientific inquiry primarily is limited to the latter. The former currently involves too many unknowns and is in the realm of philosophy and metaphysics.

I would have thought any study of the neurophysiological correlates of consciousness could only yield understanding of some sufficient correlates, not the "necessary" ones. Except of course if you are in possession of some empirically confirmed governing theory as to the nature of consciousness, by which theory it is somehow known that consciousness requires a neurobiological substrate, and/or is identical to neurobiological processes.

If you are in possession of said theory, now would be a swell time to share.

Well the philosophical notion of the consciousness is a singular thing that is either present or absent. That doesn't even need explaining because that's absolutely not how consciousness is in the first place. (the thing that needs explaining about it is why philosophers view consciousness this way, and the answer i think is simple: it's easier to think this way, it's easier to discretize something into binary value than to think in halftones).

The consciousness is gradual, as can be demonstrated any time you go to sleep or get intoxicated or the like. Furthermore, it is not even a singular point entity, as can be demonstrated in brain damage patients and via all sorts of experiments that temporarily put to sleep part of the brain. edit: and most dramatically in split-brain patients. The brain is btw is not either split or not split, one could cut corpus callosum to different depths, resulting in gradual variation of the degree of possible non-resolution of conflicts between hemispheres.Furthermore different people have dramatically different internal world and capacity of reflection. There's example of someone who lacks mental imagery:http://lesswrong.com/user/lindagert/If that person is ever having any geometrical processing in her head, which she probably does, she never sees it.There's also people who normally lack / don't do internal verbal monologue. There may be functioning people with neither.

edit: that is not to say it is all explained and understood. I personally believe that consciousness is a function of intelligence that is general enough to ponder itself, and just like intelligence is a variable quantity, so is the consciousness. We have no idea how intelligence works.

Alternatively, hit up the first (non-ad) link here for lots of additional reading.The fourth and fifth links on the subsequent page are 2002 and 2003 pieces in Nature Neuroscience, which are additional, informative reads.

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I would have thought any study of the neurophysiological correlates of consciousness could only yield understanding of some sufficient correlates, not the "necessary" ones.

The theory suggests that the proposed correlates are necessary, but not necessarily sufficient in and of themselves nor representative of a complete theory of consciousness. If they were sufficient, nothing else would be necessary. Because we don't yet have a complete understanding of consciousness, we can only say that certain things are necessary, but don't necessarily represent a complete set of the elements that yield consciousness. As such, that only some necessary correlates may be represented, is assumed.

Edited for corrections. Also, not the best, as semantics go, but hopefully helpful.

I don't need links to Crick and Koch, being already familiar with them, thank you.

We know that, at least, a functioning mature awake brain in normal conditions is sufficient for (human) consciousness. If you wish to point out that Crick & Koch (mostly the latter at this point) have adduced as yet just a subset of the NCC's, that's fine.

None of that is what I'm getting at. What I'm getting at is where and how and on what basis you or Crick or Koch or anyone are taking license to state that consciousness simpliciter necessarily involves neurobiology at all. And no, I'm not some dualist or an adherent of panpsychism or any other bullshit. I'm really just wondering where you got your proof that consciousness could not be produced artificially, by way of some yet-to-be built advanced robot with an electronic rather than neurobiological "brain" which nonetheless for that substitution supported a conscious mind.

So what's the deal? Did you (and C & K) just mean "human consciousness as we know it" when you spoke of consciousness simpliciter?

IMO the only requirement for consciousness is intelligence general enough to ponder itself (combined with any ability to reflect), plus ofc there needs to be memory to recall the experience. We haven't ever seen consciousness without intelligence or intelligence without consciousness or self awareness without consciousness and intelligence etc. We just speculate up that it might be possible. Plus the conscience that is either there or isn't there sounds like typical black-vs-white semantics applied to something thats in shades of gray (with one sharp divide though, if there is no memory write we dont recall the experience as conscious).

While i'm not personally a propenent of QM concioiusness or not. Didn't we only recently discover that plants use QM in photosynthesis? Ergo it's quite possible that our brains do use QM in some way we just haven't discovered it yet?

Besides that, I think it has to do with complexitity. Add in enough complexity and it's possible for conciousness to emerge.

ps:- Any programmers here want to write a virus to create a concious internets? There is probably more then enough processing power if you manage to get a significant % of the worlds net connected computers infected with a distritubted AI entity...

I don't need links to Crick and Koch, being already familiar with them, thank you.

We know that, at least, a functioning mature awake brain in normal conditions is sufficient for (human) consciousness. If you wish to point out that Crick & Koch (mostly the latter at this point) have adduced as yet just a subset of the NCC's, that's fine.

I don't think they've suggested that it's sufficient (alone), just necessary. There may be other elements or processes that are also necessary as well, but we either haven't identified them, or we can't.

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None of that is what I'm getting at. What I'm getting at is where and how and on what basis you or Crick or Koch or anyone are taking license to state that consciousness simpliciter necessarily involves neurobiology at all.

Science is inherently materialistic. It studies what is both observable and testable. If it's not testable, it's not science. I think the current direction of consciousness research has largely risen from successful research into various cognitive processes, and our relatively new-found ability to map them to specific brain regions and pathways.

Consciousness is merely a construct and, in this case, a scientific construct. In order to study it, via a scientific paradigm, the construct will be necessarily materialistic, to one degree or the other.

Neuroscience has come to associate consciousness with sentience. We also associate sentience with some level of neural complexity, and increasing neural complexity with increasingly higher cognitive function. Primates, specifically humans, currently occupy the top of that hierarchy. Hence, the materialistic, human-centric model at the root of consciousness research.

Perhaps it's an artifact of being human. Perhaps an artifact of the scientific paradigm. It may be incomplete or even inaccurate, but science can only study what we can observe and measure. We can only 'know' what can be demonstrated, through scientific inquiry, to a significant degree of certainty.

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And no, I'm not some dualist or an adherent of panpsychism or any other bullshit. I'm really just wondering where you got your proof that consciousness could not be produced artificially, by way of some yet-to-be built advanced robot with an electronic rather than neurobiological "brain" which nonetheless for that substitution supported a conscious mind.

So what's the deal? Did you (and C & K) just mean "human consciousness as we know it" when you spoke of consciousness simpliciter?

No one's suggested that there's "a proof that consciousness could not be produced artificially". At least, if someone did, I certainly don't have reason to believe that.

Even if it were conclusively demonstrated that human consciousness was solely a product of our neural complexity, it wouldn't necessarily impact on the potential for creating an artificial consciousness. It would simply be beyond what such findings would allow us to "know".

In addition, the concept of artificial consciousness is a question often pondered by neuroscientists as well as others who study behavior. Because there are so many unanswered questions in the current body of consciousness research, it's beyond our current capacity for valid, scientific inquiry.

I do believe that, when we have a firmer grasp on what consciousness "is", from a scientific perspective, both complexity and an interactive network of relationships will be necessary elements.

Apologies for the awkward phrasing/wording, it's late and I'm a bit tired. I know much of it is very basic, but I don't think there's much more to be read into the broader question.

ps:- Any programmers here want to write a virus to create a concious internets? There is probably more then enough processing power if you manage to get a significant % of the worlds net connected computers infected with a distritubted AI entity...

I don't need links to Crick and Koch, being already familiar with them, thank you.

We know that, at least, a functioning mature awake brain in normal conditions is sufficient for (human) consciousness. If you wish to point out that Crick & Koch (mostly the latter at this point) have adduced as yet just a subset of the NCC's, that's fine.

I don't think they've suggested that it's sufficient (alone), just necessary. There may be other elements or processes that are also necessary as well, but we either haven't identified them, or we can't.

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None of that is what I'm getting at. What I'm getting at is where and how and on what basis you or Crick or Koch or anyone are taking license to state that consciousness simpliciter necessarily involves neurobiology at all.

Science is inherently materialistic. It studies what is both observable and testable. If it's not testable, it's not science. I think the current direction of consciousness research has largely risen from successful research into various cognitive processes, and our relatively new-found ability to map them to specific brain regions and pathways.

Consciousness is merely a construct and, in this case, a scientific construct. In order to study it, via a scientific paradigm, the construct will be necessarily materialistic, to one degree or the other.

Neuroscience has come to associate consciousness with sentience. We also associate sentience with some level of neural complexity, and increasing neural complexity with increasingly higher cognitive function. Primates, specifically humans, currently occupy the top of that hierarchy. Hence, the materialistic, human-centric model at the root of consciousness research.

Perhaps it's an artifact of being human. Perhaps an artifact of the scientific paradigm. It may be incomplete or even inaccurate, but science can only study what we can observe and measure. We can only 'know' what can be demonstrated, through scientific inquiry, to a significant degree of certainty.

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And no, I'm not some dualist or an adherent of panpsychism or any other bullshit. I'm really just wondering where you got your proof that consciousness could not be produced artificially, by way of some yet-to-be built advanced robot with an electronic rather than neurobiological "brain" which nonetheless for that substitution supported a conscious mind.

So what's the deal? Did you (and C & K) just mean "human consciousness as we know it" when you spoke of consciousness simpliciter?

No one's suggested that there's "a proof that consciousness could not be produced artificially". At least, if someone did, I certainly don't have reason to believe that.

We've gone from you presuming to lecture me about C & K to lecturing me about science. That's a pattern, and a progression. Whether it's progress or not I can't say but I'm trying to be optimistic.

1. Sorry, but no. You exactly said that, pace C & K, NCC's were necessary for consciousness simpliciter. This exactly means, among other things, that a non-biological artifact with circuitry/mechanics sufficient to reproduce the functionality of the human brain/CNS/body could not and would not have consciousness, ever. It seems to me your easy option is to simply qualify the original statement, relaxing it from the grandiose and un-argued-for "consciousness (simpliciter) necessarily requires neurobiology" to something like "human consciousness is produced by brain processes". SFAICT you are unwilling to simply adopt this suggestion and I'm unclear why, especially insofar as it is all that C & K are really committed to.

2. Perhaps your reluctance is tied in with this bit:

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Consciousness is merely a construct and, in this case, a scientific construct.

What does that even mean? You mentioned this "construct" thesis before in reply to Emk and I was going to respond then but the moment passed. I suspect it's at the crux of whatever disagreement we have about the nature of the enquiry into consciousness. Are you trying to tell us that consciousness is an entirely theory-internal term, with no pre-theoretic meaning? Are you trying to tell us that you are implicitly but systematically using "consciousness" as a theory-internal term-of-art, notwithstanding the pre-theoretic existence of the colloquial term "consciousness"?

We've gone from you presuming to lecture me about C & K to lecturing me about science. That's a pattern, and a progression. Whether it's progress or not I can't say but I'm trying to be optimistic.

As I read it, we've gone from a discussion of scientific investigation, to a sarcastic comment and the injection of philosophy/linguistics (I was a bit surprised, as you're postings are, IME, typically more even-handed and constructive, and I generally see you as rather intelligent and fair), RE: "If you are in possession of said theory, now would be a swell time to share."

Perhaps it was naive, on my part, to assume the question was honest because you've subsequently noted that you're quite familiar with C & K and the fundamental science (yet you asked questions that they've fully addressed, and that are further addressed by a fundamental understanding of scientific precepts). I've previously noted that, we should separate the philosophical and scientific investigations, so it should be clear that I'm not approaching the problem from that perspective. After reading your response, I'm not actually sure what you're after.

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1. Sorry, but no. You exactly said that, pace C & K, NCC's were necessary for consciousness simpliciter. This exactly means, among other things, that a non-biological artifact with circuitry/mechanics sufficient to reproduce the functionality of the human brain/CNS/body could not and would not have consciousness, ever.

You are (I think) coming from a linguistic/philosophical perspective. I'm coming from a behavioral science perspective. They represent two different schemas. While they're different, yet somewhat overlapping domains, the former seems to concern itself much more with specifics of language and meaning, than does the latter.

If you want to believe that you know what someone else meant, better than they do, and despite them telling you what it did and didn't mean, there's not much constructive discourse to be had, is there? I certainly wouldn't assume that I know what you intended, better than you do, especially if you noted otherwise.

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It seems to me your easy option is to simply qualify the original statement, relaxing it from the grandiose and un-argued-for "consciousness (simpliciter) necessarily requires neurobiology" to something like "human consciousness is produced by brain processes". SFAICT you are unwilling to simply adopt this suggestion and I'm unclear why, especially insofar as it is all that C & K are really committed to.

Hmmm. I thought that was rather clear - i.e. that human consciousness was assumed (or at least a convenience), because most of the research involves human behavior.

2. Perhaps your reluctance is tied in with this bit:

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Consciousness is merely a construct and, in this case, a scientific construct.

I think you're seeing "reluctance" where none exists. I'm not seeing much disagreement, in terms of what consciousness is or isn't (or may/may not be), rather it's the approach that's interfering with productive communication.

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What does that even mean? You mentioned this "construct" thesis before in reply to Emk and I was going to respond then but the moment passed. I suspect it's at the crux of whatever disagreement we have about the nature of the enquiry into consciousness. Are you trying to tell us that consciousness is an entirely theory-internal term, with no pre-theoretic meaning? Are you trying to tell us that you are implicitly but systematically using "consciousness" as a theory-internal term-of-art, notwithstanding the pre-theoretic existence of the colloquial term "consciousness"?

Reification is an ongoing problem, in behavioral science, because we're using materialistic tools to investigate an abstract concept. The "map" can become confused with the "territory". It isn't necessarily so. C & K, for example, chose to look at consciousness in a certain way, but that doesn't mean it accurately and absolutely reflects what consciousness "is" or how we "must" think about it. Subsequent discussion of their research findings doesn't mean that consciousness is limited to their chosen definition or to those particular findings.

I think (i.e. I'm not certain, but feel free to correct me), you take issue with the specifics of the language used to discuss a materialistic investigation of an abstract concept (from someone who doesn't use or see the medium of communication in the same way you do). I'll agree that it's not without problems, but such focused discussions are mostly beyond my interest.